


Heart Cries

by Sugar_n_spice



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 18:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15913605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sugar_n_spice/pseuds/Sugar_n_spice
Summary: A little while after the episode "Into Dimension X", Don notices that Mikey is acting strange. He's determined to figure out why.





	Heart Cries

Donatello was suspicious. And when he was suspicious, there was no rock he would leave unturned until he had either dissuaded or confirmed his suspicions. This applied even more so to his brothers. If he thought a brother was hiding something they shouldn’t be, he became a bloodhound. And right now, he was very firmly convinced that Mikey was hiding something. His mate had been avoiding everyone’s eyes for a few days now. Not outright, but just allowing his gaze to slide away instead of fully meeting their eyes. He also avoided being alone with any one of them, even Don, as though afraid of one-on-one conversations. 

These signs all lead Don to believe that Mikey felt guilty about something. The youngest Hamato was so guileless that his honest gaze would fail to hide his secrets. And if he was avoiding one-on-one conversations, he was worried about sharing something he was trying to keep on the downlow. Really, the orange banded turtle was the absolute worst at deception. 

The first thing that Don had done when he noticed his mate’s behavior was check the lair over for pranks. Detecting none, he went back through the lair in a more detailed manner, checking for broken parts or pieces. Again, he turned up nothing. Knowing his brother’s propensity for junk food binges, the last thing he checked was the pantry. Still, nothing seemed to be out of place or missing. Finally, the scientist decided that the only way to figure out what Mikey was hiding would be to weasel it out of him. 

It took a few days to find the perfect time. But finally, Don came up with a fool-proof plan. At breakfast, he casually announced that it was time for their yearly physicals. When the protests began, he merely had to remind his brothers that none of them had stopped growing yet, and he needed to keep abreast of where they were physically in order to best be able to help them in a medical emergency. As per tradition, he started with Leo, and worked down to Mikey. 

“So, Mikey,” he started, trying to be casual as he poked, prodded, and measured his baby brother. “How’s it been?’  
“Huh? Oh, ya know…I been partying around like a boss do!” Mikey sounded distracted, fidgeting more than normal and staring at the door.   
“Uh-huh. Sure you have. So why have you been avoiding us?” Don was careful to not look directly at Mikey, wanting to lessen the pressure he was putting on his brother.   
“What? No, I wouldn’t do that!” Mikey protested, eyes widening and mouth dropping open in shock. “Everyone has just been so busy…” he trailed off when he realized that his purple masked brother wasn’t buying it.   
“Don’t lie to me, Mike.”

Mikey’s face crumpled a bit, eyes beginning to water. However, before he could open his mouth to answer, an irritated voice called through the door.   
“MIKEY! You betta get your ass out here and clean up the mess you left in the microwave!”   
“Heh, sounds like Raphie boy needs me,” Mikey chirped, sliding off the exam table and booking it for the door. “It was fun, bro, but gotta run!”   
Irritated, Donnie watched him leave, shaking his head. He had been so close to having his answer! _Oh well,_ he thought, _He can’t avoid me forever._

Later that night, incident still niggling at the back of his brain, Don cleaned up his lab, deciding to actually sleep in his bedroom for once. On his way down the dark hallway, noise from Mikey’s room caught his attention. Stepping close to the door, he pressed his head to it and listened. In a moment, the sound repeated, and he realized that it was a deep, heart-wrenching sob. Alarmed by this unusual sound coming from his normally cheery brother, he quietly slipped into the room. 

Huddled on the bed swathed by blankets, Mikey had his eyes screwed shut, and a hand pressed to his mouth in an attempt to stifle his sobs. The glow of his night light reflected off the tears streaming down his face. Protective instincts flared to life in Don as he flew forward to envelope Mikey in a hug. Startled, the smaller turtle flailed for a second before realizing who it was. 

“Are you okay?” Demanded Don quietly, hands moving quickly over his baby brother’s body to look for injuries. Finding nothing apparent, he waited for a minute before Mikey shook his head, and leaned forward into his shoulder.   
“Oh honey, what’s wrong?” Don kept his voice soft and gently rubbed his mate’s shell. A shuddery breath was the only answer he got. Realizing that Mikey wasn’t ready to talk yet, he gathered the smaller turtle up, blankets and all, and set him on his lap. 

It took a while for Mikey’s deep sobs and shuddering breaths to cease. Finally, he was able to croak  
“Sorry about that. I dunno what’s wrong with me.”   
“Hush, don’t say that. You know perfectly well what’s wrong with you. But I don’t. And I want to. Oh, honey, why won’t you tell me anything?” Don asked, voice cracking. “Did I do something wrong? Why are you shutting me out?” Mikey’s hands flailed out of his nest of blankets to frame the purple-banded turtle’s face.   
“Don’t say that! You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not trying to shut you out, I just…” he trailed off for a minute, looking for words. “I just didn’t want to make you upset. And now I have and it’s no good, and I’m always causing problems, and…”  
“Hey!” Don cut in sharply, stopping Mikey’s hysterical rant. “It’s okay. And I’ll always worry about you. It’s written into my job description, both as your brother and your mate. Now will you please tell me what’s been going on?”

Mikey, realizing that his brother wasn’t going to give up on this, decided that it was time. Needing some space, he scrambled off Don’s lap and sat with his shell against the wall. His brother watched his moves cautiously, but relaxed when he realized that it wasn’t an escape attempt.   
“Well,” Mikey started, softly, “Do you remember when we went to Dimension X?”   
“Yes, of course I do. That would be impossible to forget.”  
“When I jumped through the portal, I figured you guys would follow me right away. You always do.”   
“Of course, and we always will!” Don chuckled at the half-hearted glare Mikey threw him for interrupting.  
“Well I got through the portal and everything was weird. I waited a few minutes, but you guys didn’t come. Then I got attacked by the Globalls. So I ran And I had to keep running. I figured stuff out, learned things the hard way. It was an accident that I figured out about the sound thing. One of the Kraang worms was coming at me and I just… froze. You know me, screaming is the one thing I can always do. But this time when I screamed, it actually did something. The worm stopped and shook around, then flew away as fast as it could. I played around, screamed at different things until I realized that different sounds caused different things to happen. There were still a lot of close calls though. But the worst thing wasn’t getting hurt. It was fixing myself up. You’ve just always been there. Even when we were kids, you’d put a bandaid on my scraped knee and kissed it better. I’ve never had to do it myself. Until then. And that’s when I thought that maybe… maybe you weren’t coming for me.”

“But it was just a few hours! And you’d had to move, so obviously we weren’t going to find you right away. How could a few hours make you think we weren’t coming?” Donnie’s bafflement turned to horror as he watched Mikey’s eyes slide away from his.   
“Mike… how long were you really there?”   
“Uh, well, you know… I really didn’t have a watch.” Mikey stalled, trying to avoid the inevitable.   
“C’mon, best guess?” Don allowed his exasperation to bleed through. His young mate muttered something under his breath, and then let out a shaky exhale, staring firmly at the floor.   
“Like I said when I first found you. Months. I’m not sure how many. But more than one.” 

Silence swallowed the room. Mikey still couldn’t bring himself to meet Donnie’s eyes, and Don was having trouble catching a breath. _He was there for months? How did he survive that?! Oh Mikey, I’m so sorry!_ Finally a tiny, hurt sound escaped from the older turtle, and he flew forward to grab his mate.  
“Sweetheart, I don’t care where you are. I will always come for you,” he declared fiercely. “It might take me awhile to find you. But I will always, always come! I’m so sorry that you were there by yourself. But honey, why didn’t you just tell me?” When another heart-wrenching sob ripped from Mikey, Don clutched him even closer, peppering the top of his head with kisses.   
“When I left you were so mad at me. And when you didn’t come, I thought you were trying to teach me a lesson. Then when you did show up, you made fun of the idea that I had been there so long. I just… I thought you might still be mad. I know that you weren’t, but when you guys laughed at me for saying it had been months, I thought you would make fun of me for being lonely. I know I’m such a baby when it comes to that. So I just ignored it. But it hurt. I spent months crying myself to sleep because I wanted a hug. And then you showed up and acted like nothing had happened.” 

A desperate kiss interrupted him. Don was insistent, pressing in when Mikey would have flailed away. Finally, the younger ninja accepted and then returned the kiss. Once he felt the reciprocation, Don pulled away.   
“I’m so sorry that we made fun of you. I’m sorry that you had to spend so much time alone. I’m sorry that you had to patch yourself up. Oh sweetheart, I wish that hadn’t happened! Will you forgive me for being stupid and not listening to you?”   
“Of course!” a wide-eyed Mikey said. “You don’t have to apologize!”   
“I really, really do,” Don whispered. “I should have given you the hug you needed, and instead I mocked you. I should have followed you faster through the portal, but I stayed to chat. You shouldn’t have been alone.” 

Now it was Mikey’s turn to lean in and hug his brother.   
“But you did come for me, and that’s what matters,” he stated firmly.   
“Well, I’m going to make it up to you,” Don declared. “Started with kissing all your wounds better.”   
“Uh, they are already better,” Mikey pointed out.   
“Physically, maybe, but they can’t be completely better without kisses,” Don said, feeling just slightly foolish. “Now show me the places you got hurt.”

Mikey touched a ragged scar on his elbow, and Don leaned in to softly kiss it, mentally kicking himself for not having noticed this new mark on his mate. Mikey didn’t move, so he stared at him expectantly until the younger turtle moved his hand to another spot, this time on his thigh. The touch-and-kiss routine continued through about six more spots, before Mikey rested his hand on his plastron, right over his heart.   
“Did you get stabbed?” Donnie gasped, closely examining his brother’s scutes to make sure they were uninjured.   
“No,” Mikey whispered, “Forget it, that one wasn’t real.” Intrigued, Don looked at his mate’s face, where once again his gaze was sliding away.   
“I’m not going to forget it, Mike, what happened?”   
“My heart hurt the whole time. Because I missed you. And I thought you had just left me there.” Don’s eyes slid shut as he absorbed the pain in those words. Leaning forward a few inches, he softly kissed the indicated portion of plastron. Then he straightened up and caught Mikey’s lips in a kiss.   
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured, without really moving away from Mikey’s mouth. “I’ll make it up to you eventually. I don’t care how many kisses or hugs it takes. I need you to know that I will always, always come for you, no matter what.” 

A quiet tear slipped from Mikey’s eye, flavoring the kiss with some salt.   
“I love you, Donnie,” he stated simply. “I don’t ever want to be away from you like that again. It hurts too much.”  
“I love you too, sweetheart,” Don rejoined. “And next time I’ll jump in right after you so that you don’t have to be alone.” 

The two stayed locked in a tight hug for most of the night, only shifting to lay down. In the morning, when Leo went in to wake them, he took one look at their tear-stained faces and decided to let them sleep. Quietly, he backed out of the room and softly closed the door. Turning to look at Raph who had just walked past, he whispered,  
“I think Don finally got through to Mikey.”  
“Great,” Raph replied gruffly, although there was a soft glint in his eye. “Maybe now the dumbbell will stop avoiding all of us.”  
With an affirming nod, Leo stepped away from the closed door, determined to let his two little brothers sleep, and hopefully heal whatever had been keeping his baby brother from being his usual, exuberant self.

**Author's Note:**

> I know that I should be updating my other story, but this idea wouldn't leave me alone.


End file.
